KEEN develops investment views based on long term fundamentals in specific areas of information and communication technology. This enables us to pro-actively approach great entrepreneurs and engage with fore-and-insight. Please see our ideas below for more information.
KEEN will back the best teams in European and North American innovation clusters with a particular focus on cross-atlantic market-entry opportunities. We welcome the chance to engage with European and North American companies that have the ambition to cross the Atlantic.
KEEN will add value to the companies it backs by providing access to an exceptional network of talent and experience. We support you from day one if we are convinced about your company. Human capital first, is a simple but compelling philosophy that permeates our culture, strategy and approach to investing.OUR VIEW
In an ‘Always-on’ world, consumers expect access to intuitive and intelligent services, anytime anywhere. Fueled by the ubiquity of connectivity, the proliferation of devices, cheaper storage capacity and computing power; intelligent agents, smart machines, and the broader category of the ‘internet of things’ will gradually go from niche to broad adoption. KEEN believes that the combinatorial effects of these technological forces will unleash a wave of innovation and value creation. No longer the domain of science fiction, the world is transitioning to omnipresent intelligence build around the end-user, not the device or network. KEEN targets companies that enable access to the accumulation of global content, intelligence and services in a frictionless manner.
Categories we are interested in include: Next generation networks | Virtualization | IoT Platforms | Big Data | Machine Learning | Smart hardware | Robotics.
Servicing software in an enterprise versus consumers, or professional versus hobbyist fashion is rapidly becoming outdated. Professional users want consumer grade simplicity and intuitive design, while consumers want the power of sophisticated technology. No longer disparate, demand is increasingly trending towards the middle of what we call the prosumer continuum. KEEN will seek platform and web-services companies leveraging cloud, mobility, open architectures and communities, servicing smart tools to users applicable both in a personal and professional context.
Categories we are interested in include: Education Technology | Platform as a Service | Productivity and collaboration tools | File Management | Analytics.
The material and digital world increasingly mix with seamless handovers between online and offline experiences. Technology has widened circles of trust and diminished transaction cost. As a result consumer culture is fast changing. Consumers and businesses are transacting on a peer-to-peer basis, increasingly sharing and monetizing assets. Companies are unbundling traditional categories by disinter-mediating existing economic models with the help of technology. In this world of convenient transacting, security and identity authentication will become an ever more important prerequisite of consumption. KEEN seeks technology driven companies that bridge the gap of transacting in the material and digital word, as well as companies that can support the foundations of these new models.
Categories we are interested in include: Web and mobile market places | Payment Services | Fin-tech platforms | Digital security | Identity solutions.
Not in our Scope
We will typically not invest in the following technology sectors and categories : Online retail | Digital media | Games | Life sciences | Clean Tech | Gambling
In addition we do not invest in proof of concept phases and KEEN will look for commercial momentum. We like to back companies who are ready to scale internationally.
Team Keen
INVESTMENT TEAM
Cyrus is a skilled tech-marketeer and drives many of Keen's investments.
Cyrus Mossavar-Rahmani joined Keen Venture Partners as an associate in 2016. Prior to Keen, he worked in Berlin on marketing and strategic projects at GetYourGuide, the world’s leading independent platform for booking travel activities worldwide. Previously he was a financial analyst at UAS Asset Management, an investment firm in New York City. Cyrus is from the New York City area and received his A.B. cum laude in Economics from Harvard College, where he wrote his honors thesis on social capital in Europe. He has lived in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, China, Spain, and Argentina. Outside of work he enjoys playing chess, soccer, squash, and backgammon. He speaks six languages.
Ben has over three decades of executive experience running some of Europe's largest ICT companies.
Ben has held numerous executive positions at leading telecommunications and technology providers over a span of more than three decades. He was formerly the Chief Executive Officer of telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent, as well as BT Group PLC. He also served as the former President of KPN Telcom and the former Vice Chairman of Lucent Technologies. He is Chairman of the CBI Energy and Climate Change Board in the UK and currently on the Board of Directors of Akamai, AkzoNobel, Bharti Airtel and OFCOM. Ben has been made an officer of the Orange Order-Nassau and an Honorary Knight of the British Empire (KBE) and Chevalier de la Légion d ‘Honneur. He holds a master’s degree in law and international politics from the University of Utrecht.
Alexander has, as an operating executive, lived through growing a startup into a major public company.
Alexander brings over 20 years in international marketing, sales and general management and venture experience. Before joining Keen Venture Partners, Alexander was a general partner at Prime Ventures. Alexander invested and served as boardmember in Cint, Greetz, Layar, Takeaway.com and Bright Computing. Prior to Prime Alexander was board member and Chief Operating Officer of TomTom, the personal navigation company. Alexander played a major role in the international growth and he was part of the leadership team that IPO-ed the company. Prior to his time at TomTom he held a number of senior directors’ positions at MARS Inc. and Unilever NV. Alexander holds an MA degree in Law from the University of Amsterdam and an MBA degree from the Rotterdam School of Management.
Sara is a seasoned finance professional and runs Keen's operations.
Sara joined Keen Venture Partners in 2018 as Operating Partner from Octopus Investments where she was Head of VCT Finance. Previously she worked on listed venture capital trusts and in private equity at Albion Capital for three years where she was a Finance Manager, prior to that she worked in the M&A finance team at Macquarie Group in Sydney for two years. She trained as a Chartered Accountant at PwC, Dublin in their financial services auditing department. She has a degree in International Commerce and a Masters in Accounting from University College Dublin.
Robert is an experienced tech investor and strategist.
Robert is an experienced technology investor and strategist. Prior to founding Keen Venture Partner he was most recently a Principal at Prime Ventures, which he joined as an associate in 2009. While at Prime, Robert worked on investments including Layar, eBuddy, Service2Media, Cint, Eutechnyx, Mendix, Takeaway.com and MarkaVIP. Before his venture capital days, Robert was a strategy consultant working for the Monitor Group in their London and New York offices. He started his career as an Analyst at PA Consulting Group in New York. He is a trustee for the Autism Research Trust which raises funds to support research conducted at the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. He holds a BSc degree in Business Management from Babson College.
Jack is a software engineer turned tech investor with a diverse tech operator background
Jack Wang joined Keen Venture Partners in 2018 as an associate after completing his MBA at London Business School. Previously, he was a financial analyst at Amazon in Seattle and lead investment analysis and financial planning for Amazon’s new retail ventures. Jack also has over 5 years of technical experience in software engineering and product management from Australian banking, including developing algorithmic trading platforms for Macquarie Group. In addition to his MBA, Jack holds a BEng in Bioinformatics Hons. and BComm in Finance from the University of New South Wales, Australia.
NETWORK PARTNERS
Keen has created a network of best-in-class technology professionals to support your ambitions.
Marcus is president of Bell Labs and corporate CTO of Nokia. He joined Bell Labs in 1995, and has held a variety of leadership roles in both research and technology development functions. As CTO he has helped drive the company in new directions, including the the defining of the new programmable ‘Cloud Network’ paradigm that will enable innovation and value creation for Cloud services. Marcus was born and raised in the United Kingdom, receiving a BSc degree in Chemistry and Computer Science from King’s College, London. He emigrated to the United States to obtain a Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry from Harvard University, later joining Bell Labs as a postdoctoral researcher in the Physics Department. He has won numerous scientific and engineering society awards for his work on electronics and optical materials before becoming CTO of Alcatel-Lucent.
Clare is the Founder and joint CEO of The Up Group, and member of the Board. She is one of Europe’s most seasoned talent advisors in digital, and has helped to build the senior management teams and Boards of many of Europe’s most disruptive and transformational businesses. Having self-funded and grown The Up Group from the ground, Clare has been recognised as one of Tech City Insider’s “100 Most Influential People in Tech” and was presented the Athena Award at the 2015 NatWest everywoman Awards for female entrepreneurs. Clare’s earlier career was as a Management Consultant for Detica, an international technology consultancy, as well as being co-Managing Director of an executive search firm. Clare graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Management Sciences from the University of Warwick.
Steven Schuurman is an experienced serial entrepreneur. Steven was one a co-founders of Elastic, serving as CEO for the first five years of the company (until 2017). He is now part of Elastic’ Board of Directors. Before Elastic, Steven was CEO of Orange11, which was acquired by Trifork A/S (TRIFOR.CO) in 2012. Prior to Orange11, Steven co-founded the internationally renowned open source software vendor SpringSource, one of the most successful open source companies in history. SpringSource is the world’s leading Enterprise Java middleware company, and was acquired by VMware (VMW) in 2009. Steven has in his spare time set up FutureNL a foundation with a mission to help all Dutch primary school students receive digital literacy in their daily curriculum.
PORTFOLIO
we are proud to back
Enterprise messaging for non-desktop workforce
Intelligent matching for education choices
Threat intelligence platform
High performance computing in the cloud
Prescriptive analytics for retail
Performance management software
SME productivity platform